It was a barren prospect that greeted Burton when he stepped from the train at the station,--the only passenger to alight. A bare windswept prairie; at a little distance, a colony of teepees, with fluttering rags and blankets blowing about, and a bunch of ponies nibbling at the coarse grass; and nothing to mark the hand of the white man but the rails which ran in gleaming and significant silence away. A man whose clothes were of the indistinguishable color of the sunburnt grass was sitting on the edge of the platform which made the whole of the station. He was dangling his feet over the edge and whittling, and it was this occupation quite as much as his looks that made Burton guess him to be a white man. He went up to him.
"Can you tell me where to find the Agent?" he asked.
The man had been staring at him intently as he approached, and now, after a pause that made Burton wonder whether he had been understood, the man cocked his thumb in the direction of a long frame building on the other side of the track. A man was standing in the doorway, watching the daily pageant of civilization represented by the passing train, and Burton approached him. Immediately the man to whom he had spoken slipped from the platform and ran, with a long lope, toward the teepees on the right.
Burton presented himself to the Indian Agent, introducing himself as an amateur on the subject of Indian basketry, who wished to add to his knowledge by studying the art among the Indians on the Reservation.
The Agent, whose name was Welch, evidently found some difficulty in adjusting his own point of view to that of his visitor, but Burton finally succeeded in convincing him that he was at least sane enough to receive the benefit of the doubt, and that there really were people who cared to know about what the Indians made for their own use.
"I especially want to see the older squaws who remember how things were done in the old days, before they were put on Reservations," said Burton.
"Old Ehimmeshunka would about fill that bill, I guess," said Welch. "She\'s old, all right. She\'s Washitonka\'s squaw. Their daughter is Pahrunta, and she takes baskets and fancy things like that on the railroad train to sell."
"I should like to see them," said Burton eagerly. They certainly were the very people he wanted to see. Those were the names Ben Bussey had mentioned.
"All right; come along."
"Can they speak English?"
"Washitonka speaks fairly well. Ehimmeshunka doesn\'t need to, of course. Pahrunta knows a few words, enough to enable her to get about by herself. She probably understands a good deal more than she shows. They are that way."
"I shall be greatly obliged if you will act as interpreter."
"Certainly. Hello, here\'s Washitonka now!"
An old Indian had entered the room so noiselessly that neither of the white men had heard him. He was a striking figure, erect in spite of the years he carried, and wrapped in a blanket which looked as dignified as any Roman toga. In spite of the stolidity of his expression, there was unmistakable curiosity in the look he bent upon Burton.
"What you want, Washitonka?" asked Welch, in a tone of indulgent jocularity.
The Indian continued to look at Burton with a frank interest that did not approach rudeness or lessen his dignity. It was hard to say whether his curiosity was friendly or not. He seemed a mixture of the child and the Sphinx.
"How!" said Burton, with friendly intent.
"How!" responded Washitonka. Then he turned to Welch and made some observations in a very guttural voice.
"He says he has come to see the man who has a charmed life," said Welch with a laugh.
"Ask how he knows that I have a charmed life."
After some colloquy, which Burton wished vainly that he could understand, Welch explained.
"He says he knew, when he saw the smoke rise this morning, that a man who bore a charmed life would come to his teepee today."
"Oh, did he!" exclaimed Burton. "Well, tell him that when I lit my cigar this morning I knew by the way the smoke rose that I should meet today a wise old man with a silver tongue, who would tell me many wonderful tales of the old days when the Indian and the paleface hunted the buffalo together and were brothers."
Welch laughed, and after a moment\'s stony impassivity Washitonka relaxed into a grin which betrayed his understanding of the white man\'s tongue.
"Good talk," he said briefly.
"Will you explain to him that I want to find out about basket-weaving?" said Burton.
Welch evidently found it expedient to use Washitonka\'s own language for elaborate disquisitions of this sort. At the end of his exposition, Washitonka approached a step toward Burton and spoke with grave dignity.
"Bacco," was what he said.
Burton had come prepared for this emergency, and he produced a package of tobacco, artfully allowing it to be seen that there were other packages still in reserve.
"Come," said Washitonka, and stalked off toward the sunburnt teepees toward which the stray lounger at the station had gone.
By this time the little village was very much alive. Curiosity had brought the women and the children to the doors, where they stood shyly staring at the stranger. The men scorned to show open curiosity, but they all seemed to have business out of doors at that moment.
Washitonka\'s teepee was somewhat larger than the others, but there was nothing else about it to suggest the dignity of the chief. A pile of folded blankets and garments filled one corner, and cooking utensils were piled in another. But Burton had neither eyes nor thoughts for the accessories of the place. His attention was wholly given to the little old woman, broad-faced, brown-skinned, who sat by the doorway stringing beads. Her face was wrinkled like a piece of leather, and her coarse black hair was drawn down behind her ears and tied with gay cord. Her small black eyes followed Burton\'s motions as an animal\'s might. She was so complete and so unusual a picture that Burton would very gladly have made the trip just to see her.
Back of her in the teepee a woman was moving about her work,--the daughter, Pahrunta. Burton smiled at her and she smiled back in recognition.
Welch said something in their own tongue, and the younger woman waddled across the place and brought out a large basket holding the wares that she took to the town to sell. They were mostly trumpery things,--impossible birch-bark baskets and bead-worked match-holders and collar-boxes supposed to appeal to the taste of the tourist. But Burton saw, with thankfulness, that the large basket which held the things was woven with the same strong, peculiar twist that he had studied so carefully in the example he already owned.
"Ask them who made the large basket," he said, while he handled the gay trivialities with careless hand.
Welch duly translated the inquiry, and said: "She did,--Ehimmeshunka here. Made it long ago, she says."
"Ask her if she will teach me to make one like it."
This, translated, provoked only laughter from Pahrunta and a grunt from Washitonka. The old, old woman looked on without expression.
"Tell her I will pay her," said Burton, showing money.
It took a good deal of explaining to get the idea really understood, and then Ehimmeshunka shook her head.
"She says the winter has come into her fingers and they are like twigs when the frost is on them," he explained, with some difficulty. "Now she can only put beads on a string like a child."
"Ask if she ever taught any one else when her fingers were young."
Before Welch could translate this question, Washitonka spoke a curt word to the woman. His intonation and look needed no translation. Burton guessed quickly enough that it was an injunction of silence, and this was confirmed when Ehimmeshunka\'s grin faded into stolidity and she took up her work again.
"Old Wash says she never taught anybody," said Welch.
This response and the look he had intercepted gave Burton pause. Was he being purposely blocked in his investigation? He did not wish to prejudice his case by too much urgency, so he deemed it best to drop the matter for the time. He gave Ehimmeshunka a coin, and turned away with Welch.
"What do you know yourself about these people?" he asked the Agent.
"Well, not much. You see, I\'ve just come."
"You know their language."
"Oh, yes. I\'ve been in the service for some time, but I was assigned here only about a month ago, when the other Agent died. I haven\'t seen all the Indians that belong to me yet. They\'re away somewhere, hunting or loafing, or riding their wild ponies over the prairies just for fun. No head for business."
"Then you know nothing of the personal history of Washitonka or who his friends are?"
"Not a scrap."
"I\'m sorry," said Burton. "I wanted to learn something about the early days when they saw more or less of the early settlers."
"Writing a book?"
"You might call it so," said Burton non-committally. (Certainly he might, if he wanted to.)
"That old chap, Washitonka, ought to have stories to tell," said Welch, with interest, "but he seems as close as a clam. That\'s an Indian trait. They won\'t talk personalities."
"What did he mean by saying I had a charmed life?" asked Burton, returning to a point that had puzzled him.
"Don\'t know. Said that you cheated death. They have a way of giving names like that. Have you had any narrow escapes?"
"How would Washitonka know it, if I had?"
"Oh, there you get me! Perhaps Pahrunta heard talk of it."
But the suggestion did not satisfy Burton. He had the feeling that Washitonka knew more than he should--unless posted. Yet how could he have been posted? It made him feel that he must go warily.
In the afternoon he visited other teepees under Welch\'s chaperonage, and tried to establish a wide-spread reputation as a collector of curios and of stories. He did not go near Washitonka\'s teepee. He followed the same plan of procedure the next day,--and it took more self-control than he often had occasion to call upon. He gained one point by this method, however: he definitely satisfied himself that if he did not get the information he wanted in Washitonka\'s teepee, he might as well abandon the idea of getting it anywhere on the Reservation. There was no one else, in this little colony at any rate, who dated back to the time he wanted to probe. When he asked why there were no old people, the Agent answered tersely: "Smallpox."
That curse of the winter had swept the nomadic tribes again and again in their days of wandering, and only the younger and stronger had survived to find the comparative protection of the Reservation life. And to this younger generation the past had either no value or too emotional a value. They had forgotten its traditions, or else they refused to tell them to the stranger of today. Burton\'s inquiry was specific and definite: Had any white men been among them and learned how to weave baskets? To them it was a foolish question,--so foolish that they could with difficulty be persuaded to make a definite answer. Why should any white man wish to weave baskets? Could he not buy better baskets in the stores, not to mention buckets of beautiful tin? Nobody made baskets but old Ehimmeshunka.
On the third day he returned, with as casual an air as was possible, to Washitonka\'s teepee. Ehimmeshunka was sitting in the sunshine by the door. Washitonka was smoking some of Burton\'s tobacco, with an air of obliviousness, but when Burton placed himself beside Ehimmeshunka and began talking in a low voice to his interpreter, Welch, the old Indian promptly laid aside his dignity and came over to the little group by the door. Clearly he was not going to allow any conversation in his teepee without his knowledge.
There was little opportunity, however, for any asides, since Burton was under the necessity of talking through an interpreter. It was so cumbersome a method that he resolved to abandon his small attempt a............